Development Update

It's been a while since I posted an update here, and for that I'd like to apologise. Changes to my life have meant that I have not been able to continue my work on the game as I originally planned. I should have been more transparent about this over the last year, but the aim of this post is to explain that and give you an idea of what to expect in the future.

Up until July of 2019, I was working a part-time job and spending the rest of my free time working on VentureVerse. The game didn't sell well enough in Early Access to allow me to work on it full time, so I kept that schedule up until I found a great opportunity in mid-2019. I took that opportunity and am now working full time as part of an indie team. Personally, this was a massive weight off my shoulders as it freed me from a job I hated, but the downside was it meant I had much less time to spend working on VentureVerse.

Since then, I have been working on the game in small amounts, trying out some new features and re-writing some old code, but the pace of this work has been too slow for me to feel good about selling the game at this time, so I asked Steam to make the game temporarily unavailable for purchase. Of course, it is still playable to anyone who purchased it before and it can still be added to wishlists.

So what is the plan going forward? Well I do intend to finish the game by completing a story and making it playable from start to finish. I intend to somewhat re-write the story with a different tone and with some shuffled content. I also intend to put some more work into polishing the gameplay and improving performance.

I don't want to put a date on when these updates will be available, but I intend to release small updates when they are done, as opposed to my previous approach of only releasing big content updates. I expect the first of these to come within the first few months of 2021.

One note I'd like to make is that going forward, I will only be releasing official support for English language text. I had originally intended to support a wide range of languages, but the costs of translation were too much. I may add the option to create custom translation files.

Finally, in October last year I pushed a new build of VentureVerse to Steam. At the time, I decided not to release patch notes because, frankly, I didn't think anyone cared. Looking back, I think that was a dumb decision. Here are the notes from that update:

Version 0.9.3 Patch Notes CHANGES

• Replaced "The Eclipsian Labyrinth" with "The Eclipsian Monolith", providing a shorter and more puzzle-focused experience featuring many Push-Block puzzles. This dungeon contains the final shard of the Essence Crystals!

• Added 17 Steam Achievements (Some will be unlocked when version 1.0 releases).

• Added support for Steam Cloud Saves, allowing you to upload your profiles and continue with them on another PC.

• Added an official VentureVerse Steam Badge with 7 trading cards, 3 profile backgrounds and 5 emoticons.

• Added "Retry Fight" option for boss fights, allowing you to instantly restart a boss fight after reaching 0 hearts.

• Added gear information pop-ups when gear items are picked up for the first time.

• Added new logic dungeon element: "Function - Room Effect". This can be used to add a buff or a boon when the player is in a specific room.

• Added alternate wall meshes for wall styles: Eclipsian, Citadel & Tomb.

• Changed travel menu destination buttons to be ordered by priority instead of distance.

• Reduced Razor Wurm health from 4 hearts to 2 hearts.

• Improved the optional puzzles in Glimmer Shard Mine level 1.

• Redesigned "Skull" and "Skull Top" props to better match character head proportions.

• Redesigned item unlock pop-up menu.

FIXES

• Fixed Push-Blocks sometimes stopping on top of Push-Block barricades.

• Fixed multiple issues with the game over screen.

• Fixed enemy attack routines being restarted when taking damage.

• Fixed player rotation being effected when a fixed camera zone camera is shook.

• Fixed issues when two camera shakes overlap.

• Fixed issue where some projectiles would appear at full size for a split second before scaling up.

EDITOR CHANGES

• Added object replacement system support for multiple dungeon elements to prevent overlaps.

• Added 3 "dead" poses as actor idle animations.

• Added "Azure Cleric Robes" and "Magic Channelling Suit" as options for actor body armour.

Thank you to anyone who has played the game so far!

Matt